


Web of memories

by dorocak



Category: Castlevania (Cartoon)
Genre: F/M, Family Fluff, Gen, Post-Season/Series 02, Pre-Season/Series 01, baby alucard, because flashbacks, but just if you squint, sorta angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-16
Updated: 2019-02-20
Packaged: 2019-10-11 07:24:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17442491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dorocak/pseuds/dorocak
Summary: Dracula castle was like a spider web. An ancient web without the old spider, but stil sticky with images of the past(Or Alucard roams thorugh the castle, reminiscing about his mother's curious nature and his father's genius, and maybe slightly halucinates)





	1. web of memories

 

  
The more time Alucard had spent at the Dracula’s castle, the more it reminded him of a web. A large spider web tangled up from memories and nostalgia,  a tight cocoon he can wrap in and sleep. Oh, how he wished to sleep. But he made a promise and though it was a promise to a dumb brutal bastard of a Belmont it was still a promise Alucard was determined to keep.

He sighed as he looked around. He was in his mother’s old laboratory now. It was a nice place - or at least used to be. Now, most of the glass flasks were shattered and papers were scattered all over the floor. He knew he should clean it up - but instead, he was sitting on his mother’s chair, as usual, trying to catch a glimpse of the past.

The laboratory was perhaps Lisa’s favourite room, triumphed only by the library. His mother had spent hours and hours in this room, and so did he of course. It was nice, watching her studying samples and mixing chemicals or listening to her quiet humming as she was writing down notes into a large book with leather cover sitting on the table.

Alucard shook his head with a faintest bittersweet smile on his lips.

He could still see himself sitting at the table, his mom bent down to see him face to face, studying him with one hand tucked under her chin.  
“Hmm,” she tilted her head, furrowing her eyebrows in concentration. Her expression made little Adrien giggle.

She tilted her head to the other side and cupped his cheek.

"Hmm," she commented, making the boy laugh even more.

“What’s wrong, Lisa?”   a deep voice came from behind her back. Lisa turned around, behind her stood Vald with  a plush dog in one hand.

“Papa!” Adrien laughed out loud, reaching out for the new toy. 

“Vlad!” his mother crossed her hands with pretented anger.

“How many times do I have to tell you not to sneak up on people?”

Vlad only chuckled and lifted Adrien up. The little boy squealed in delight when the new toy finally came to his possession, baring his white teeth on the plush dog.

“Now, be careful you don’t have to destroy it right away,” Vlad warned his son kindly, but when he looked at his wife, he saw a shadow of worry crossed her face.

“Is something troubling you?” he repeated his question with a more serious tone. Lisa snapped out of her thoughts.

“Yes,  actually,” she admitted.

“I was meaning to ask you - is it normal for vampires to age this fast?”

Vlad raised an eyebrow in confusion.

“What do you mean by that?”

Lisa patted her little boy on the head and looked up at her husband’s face.

“Adrian is barely nine months old but he already has a complete set of teeth, is bigger and stronger than most babies his age, has longer hair that he should have, can sit straight up without any help, walk and even talk in simple sentences. His development progresses much faster than that of normal human babies.”

Vlad shook his head and sat the boy down on the table again.

“Well, he's not a human baby, is he?” he turned to his wife removed a strand of hair from her face.

“You don’t have to worry about it. Vampire’s bodies mature much faster than a human’s, although after a certain age  the ageing slows so much it basically stops.”

Now a dark shadow crossed his face. If Lisa noticed it, she ignored it for now.

“Who said I’m worried. Though I must say I am a bit irritated”,she said to him.

Vlad looked at her, not sure what she meant by that.

“And why is it so?”

“That's ridiculously simple. There are no documents about the subject. I went through the whole library and I found nothing! Not a single mention of a vampire or a damphyr anatomy!” she threw her hands into the air in exasperation. Little Adrien mimicked her gestures with laughter, dropping the toy in the process.

“You have all the knowledge of the old hidden in those books, but not a single mention about your own kind, beside all those fairy tales and superstitions. It’s ridiculous!”

Vlad picked the toy from the ground.

“There was never any reason to,” he said cleaning it from dust.

“Vampires are a small group - we know everything we need to know about our kind and don’t feel the need to share this with humans.”

Lisa raised one warning finger at him.

“And that’s a huge mistake. The only way knowledge survives is by spreading.”

Dracula scoffed.

“Such knowledge is a waste for humans. They would only use it to exploit our weaknesses and try to destroy us,” he growled, crushing the plush dog subconsciously.

“No, they won’t,” Lisa opposed taking her husband by the hand.  “Humans arm themselves against you, only because they are afraid. And they are afraid because they don’t know you or your kind. It’s the same with science. People fear it and call it witchcraft for no other reason than because they don’t know better.”

Vlad looked at her with a mixture of defiance and kindness in his eyes.

“You may think that, but you don't know them. Thye're just little pigs, small minded and short lived."

She raised a brow at him.

"I don't know if you noticed, but you married one of those short-living small-mided pigs."

Dracula shook his head.

"You aren’t the same as other humans, Lisa.“

“Oh, really now?” 

Adrien looked at his mother's face. Her expression was underadable for him, somewhere between playful, curious and disapointed. Vlad didn't seem to notice that though. He stepped closer to her, handing her the toy.

“Of, course you aren't. You seek wisdom, you seek knowledge. You aren’t scared of science. You weren’t  scared even of me when we met.”

“You think so?” Lisa tilted her head provocatively. “Actually, I was horrified when I first met you. I honestly didn’t know which was worse - you horrible fangs or your terrifying... manners!” she pretended to faint falling to his arms.

“Well didn’t I change over the time?” Vlad pulled her up  and leaned closer so their faces almost touched. Lisa's expression softened somewhat as she loked her on the back of his neck.

“Don't flatter yourself. There’s still a lot of work to do,” she whispered quietly and closed the distance between their lips.

At this moment little Adrien decided - he didn’t get his new toy back and he was ignored for far too long. This was enough. He started crying, throwing his hands in the air, all red from the lack of air.

“Oh, my!” Lisa laughed, breaking from her husbands embrace and taking the little boy on her arms, giving him the toy.

“Sweetheart, don't be jealous. I'm right here.”

She looked over the shoulder at Dracula and cracked a mischievous smile.

“Well, no matter how fast he grows he’s still mom’s little boy,  isn’t he?”

 

The image became blurry and Alucard realized his eyes were filled with tears. He shook his head forcing the image out. When he opened his eyes again he was back in the same old laboratory, cold and empty. He stood up to leave. Glass cracked under his feet loudly. He kneeled and picked up a sharp transparent shard of some flask. He should really get rid off this mess. He chuckled sadly and shook his head. Mother would be so pissed it had become such a mess. She had always been so keen on keeping things neat and safe. No sharp objects or dangerous chemicals in reach of a child. As he inspected the shard, his eyes caught a glimpse of gold in the reflection. Gold like the Sun, like the hair of his mother. A burst of soft childlike laughter rang through the air. He whirled around, just to catch a flock of golden hair vanishing behind the corner.

Alucard moved outside instinctively, led by the voice. When he turned the corner there was nothing. The hall was empty, only a small white crown was sitting on the stone floor and even that flew away as soon as it noticed him, vanishing through the large shattered window on the far wall into the light of day.

Allucard chuckled bitterly

_"What a lucky bastard."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear readers,  
> thank you for reading to the end (or perhaps skipping right to the endnotes, though I don't know why you would do that),  
> Feel free but not obliged to like and or review, compliment or criticize.  
> I wish you a nice rest of the day and pleasant reading of more fanfictions form this or other fandoms.


	2. melted machine

  
Only now, as he spent all his time in the empty castle did Alucard realize how much was the whole structure dependent on Dracula and his magic. The magic that sadly vanished along with its master. Or perhaps not. Alucard had a feeling there must have been a mechanism somewhere in the castle to help with the maintenance. He suspected it had been connected to the teleportation machine. The one that was now melted and dysfunctional in every sense of the word.

 

Alucard did make several attempts to repair it. Not to move around, just so the castle won’t become a ruin.  
In the end, he came to the conclusion that if he wanted to make it work again he would have to replace the whole thing. The problem was he wasn’t sure whether he wanted to do that. On one hand, it would be actually a welcome distraction. It required a lot of work - both mental and physical and it would take some time to do everything.  On the other, it felt wrong to remove it. The machine was essentially the heart of the whole castle, the one thing that unmistakably bore the mark of Dracula. He had said his father had died along with his mother, but that wasn’t completely the truth. What died with Lisa on that day was Dracula, the husband, Dracula the father, Dracula the human. However, the part of him that had lived before that happened, that had lived even before he had met Alucard’s mother was still present in those giant wheels of steel, his genius still resting in the complex art the teleportation part of the castle was. 

 

  
Sometimes, when his mother was too busy or needed rest, Vlad would take Adrien with him to the machine. The giant structure entranced the little boy who might have looked like he was around ten but as actually only five. His father would explain to him, how it worked and how to operate it and then answer every single question the boy asked.

 

“What is this for?” little Adrien asked pointing at a small set of wheels hidden down below behind the giant metal ones.

 

“Don’t stick your fingers there, Adrien,” his father would warn him. “Something might cut them off.”

 

The boy pulled back immediately, bumping into his father.

 

“Sorry,” he murmured.

 

“Don’t apologize to me. I wouldn’t be the one without the finger,” Vlad replied as he kneeled next to his son.

 

“Now what was the thing you were asking about?”

 

“Those circles inside,” Adrien said. “‘Bout this big, with small engravings on the side.”

 

Vlad nodded with a smile.

 

“Well, that’s the Gaean circuit,” he explained. “It is connected with those large wheels over there to…”

 

Lisa would find them about an hour later,  sitting on the ground, Vlad explaining the basis of magic-physics correlation to Adrien, who was nodding,  eyes filled with curiosity. 

 

“Here,  you are, my little scientist,” she called out,  interrupting the little session. 

 

Adrien turned around immediately, like a puppy hearing its master. 

 

_(He had been  annoyingly jumpy at that age,  Alucard recalled.)_

 

“Mom!” he laughed and ran to hug his mom.

 

“Lisa, you’re done I see,” Vlad stood up, trying to hide slightly hurt pride as his son apparently prefered Lisa than whatever he had been telling him. But who was he to blame him? He would pick Lisa as well over some boring lecture.

 

"It's enough for one day," his wife admitted, brushing Adrien's hair. "Now, I get to spend time with my boy."

 

“Mother, I almost lost my finger!” the younger boy in question exclaimed proudly.

 

“Really?” Lisa looked at Vlad with playful scorning in her eyes.

 

“How come?”

 

“I put my finger between the wheels. But father told me I shouldn’t do that. And he explained how the castle works,  and how magic is just like physics but using different elements and,  and… ,” the boy continued with his rant.

 

“Your father is an excellent teacher,” Lisa said with a smirk.

 

“I happen to have excellent students,” Vlad replied kissing her on her cheek. Or planning to, since his wife swiftly moved to the side to avoid his lips and looked back at him with a mocking expression.

 

“Sometimes I feel the tables should be turned,  darling.”

 

Vlad groaned.

 

“Oh,  really. What are you going to do? Kick me out of my own fortress to the wild with those humans of yours.”

 

“Now, now, don’t forget your wife is a human too,” Lisa dodged another kiss.

 

“But don’t worry - I won’t kick you out that soon.”

 

And with those words, she smacked one kiss on his cheek. Vlad wanted to protest to her words but then little Adrien decided to show his discomfort with the situation by making kissing and gagging sounds.

 

“Ou, kissing,  gross!”

  
_(Yeah,  that was also something I did,  Alucard admitted to himself.)_

 

  
Lisa turned to her son and a dangerous sparkle lit up behind her eyes.

 

“I see! You want one too,” she said and reached to her son.

  
“No, bleugh!” the boy cried with the tact of a five-year-old and started running away, his mom after him.

 

  
“Caw,  caw!”

  
A loud croaking came out of nowhere, tearing apart the gentle illusion of memory. Alucard stood up,  mildly annoyed and looked around to see the source of the noise. Finally, he noticed a chunk of soft feathers in remains of half melted machinery several feet away above him. He jumped up carefully balancing on the fragile constructions. There was a small bird, croaking and waving its wing and legs like crazy,  but to no avail. Its right wing was trapped in a small crack in the metal construction.  Alucard caught the faintest scent of blood. 

 

“You won't get out like this, slow down,” he warned the bird. To no surprise the bird ignored him, continuing crying for help. 

 

Alucard sighed.

  
“I swear, you're more stubborn than Belmont.”

  
He grabbed the bird with one hand so that its other wing and head wouldn’t get in his way and stuck fingers of the other into the crack. Slowly, he moved his hand,  widening the crack and freeing the bird’s wing. The bird,  feeling that it’s freed,  started to move around with even more vigour. Alucard didn’t let go, holding the bird firmly but not too strong to hurt it.

  
“Stop it,  you little-,” he growled with irritation. The bird tried to peck him in return.

  
Alucard ignored it and instead focused on the bird’s wing. The bleeding didn’t stop yet. Vampire’s hand was now covered in blood and the wing was in an awkward angle. When he let go of it the bird yelped and almost leapt off Alucard's hand.

  
Alucard frowned. That stupid gulp of feathers most probably broke something as it was trying to free itself. And without a wing, it wouldn’t survive.

  
The scent of blood was still strong. If Alucard didn’t eat it, it would attract some wild animals…

 

He shook his head and jumped down,  cradling the bird carefully in his hands. There should be something about birds in the library.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear reader,
> 
> I'm glad you managed to finish this chapter as well (or just jumped to the endnotes, what do I know). If you like, you can comment, criticize, compliment or cringe at the corniness of this creation.
> 
> Sincerely 
> 
> the Writer of this thing


	3. a little bird, a wounded bird, a bird with annoyed look...

 

 

It took Alucard around half an hour to actually find a relevant book on bird anatomy and some bandages, and then another half an hour to calm that godforsaken bird to calm down and stop fighting him.  In the end,  it was more due to exhaustion rather than trust in its saviour that made it finally stopped. Alucard tented the wing ( it was broken after all), as well as he, could and put the bird into a large cage he’d found in one of the many chambers of the castle. It wasn’t as much so that the bird wouldn’t flee,  but more so that a wild cat or some other predator couldn’t reach it.

Alucard finally sat down. Scratches on his hands were slightly itching, but they would close themselves soon enough. Alucard sighed and ran threw a sidelong glance and the sleeping bird.

“This much work and you won’t even thank me,” he said with a wry smile.

“Why the fuck do I even care for you?”

A dumb question,  he knew why. It was something his mother would do. Something she would want _him_ to do.

 

Alucard still remembered how she would bring wounded animals home from time to time. For training she said, and she tended their wounds and took care of them until they were well enough to be released back into the wild. Adrien used to play around them from time to time. When he learnt how to turn into a wolf,  he would chase them around the castle. For him, it was a game, but  Lisa would always scold him for scaring the animals.

He recalled as one time when he and his mother went to release a small dove Lisa had found with a broken leg a while ago. While his mother watched as the dove returned to the rest of the pack Adrien roamed around a bit in his wolf form. He wandered under a cliff nearby. There he found something - a small bird with light feathers that made it look like an overgrown dandelion. It looked like it had fallen out of the nest. He sniffed it curiously when a small but sharp beak emerged from the fluffiness of feathers and pinched his lip. Adrien jumped back into the closest bushed, more shocked and embarrassed than in pain. W _hat was this thing doing? Did it not know who_ he _was?_

"I'm the only son of Dracula Tepes!" he informed the bird from the safety of the bushes as he transformed into a human.

"You want to fight, bird?"

The bird ignored him. Instead, it started crying. Was it calling for help?

Adrien stuck his head out of the bushes and looked around. There were no other birds coming.

"They're not coming," he said to the bird.

"They probably don't want you because you kept on pinching them. You ought to fly to them and apologize."

The bird stopped crying for a while. It looked like it was trying to lift itself up, waving with the small wings, but then it fell down again.

"You can't fly? Are you wounded?" Adrien asked, getting closer to the bird.

The bird got back on its feet. Under the fluffy feathers, it was very thin, but it didn't look wounded.

Adrien lifted the bird carefully, examining it. The bird tried to peck him again.

"You're quite a fighter," the boy noted.

"Hey, stop trying to eat me! I'm not food!" he cried in surprise when the bird pinched him again. _It didn't hurt at all,_ he realized. The birds beak was too weak to cause any real harm

"Adrien, here you are!" his mother came out of the bushes behind him, panting slightly.

"Don't run off like this, you do know I can't turn into a wolf like you."

Adrien turned to his mom immediately.

"Mom, mom, look what I found!" he lifted the bird.

Lisa kneeled beside him. A shadow crossed her face when she saw the small creature.

"You picked this little guy from the nest?"

The boy shook his head.

"No, mom, he was lying here. I reckon he's wounded. And hungry. Hey!" he shouted at the bird nomming on his fingers.

Lisa looked up, sighing sadly.

"We should return now," she said to the boy.

"And what about Dandelion?" he asked.

"Can I keep him, mom?"

Lisa arched a brow in surprise.

"Dandelion?"

"Yes. Can I keep him? Please?"

Lisa smiled at the boy and took the bird into her hands carefully.

"Alright. But you need to take good care of him."

 

They took the bird home with them.  Lisa tended Knight (Adrien had renamed about twelve times till they got home) and then she and Adrien made a nest for him out of old clothes and let him rest.

“Shouldn’t we give him back to his mama and papa?” Adrien asked as he watched the bird.

Lisa patted him on the head.

“No, sweetie,  he cannot go back to his parents anymore.”

“Why?”

“It's not his home anymore, son,” his father’s voice hovered over him.

Adrien turned around.

“Why not, dad?” he asked, confused.

“He was most probably pushed from the nest by a stronger sibling,” Dracula explained.

Adrien frowned.

"That's rude! But his parents should pick him up, right?"

Lisa and Vlad exchanged looks.

"No, they won't," Vlad said at last. ” Birds are not like us. Some species lay more eggs than necessary to ensure that at least one of the offspring survives. However, when two birds hatch, it's only the stronger one the parents take care off, especially when they don't have enough food to feed both. the weaker one is usually pushed out of the nest or completely neglected."

Adrien looked at Knight,  battling the tears in his eyes.

That’s unfair,” he said sulking.

“That's the law of nature,  son. It’s rarely kind,” his father replied with a sad sigh.

Lisa frowned, but then she looked back at the boy.

“Your father is right, darling, “ she kneeled beside him.

“Nature is not kind and not fair. But that’s one more reason to be kind and be fair yourself. To battle the cruelty. To help weak ones live.”

She stood up and offered the boy a hand.

“Now,  Adrien, let's get Bat something to eat,  shall we?”

 

“Augustus - that's how I named him in the end -  survived and grew stronger,” Alucard finished the story, “He was my faithful companion through my childhood. I’m not sure what happened to him after... well, afterwards. He’s most probably dead now.”

He glanced at the bird in the cage. The bird had woken up in the meantime and was giving him the most irritated and bored expression he had ever seen on a bird. Alucard grimaced.

“Alright,  I get it,  you little bastard. You want food, not old stories.”

He lifted himself from the chair and left the room.

He wasn’t really sure what kind of food to get for that bird -  not even what kind of bird it was. It resembled a crow,  but its feathers were bright yellow. Its eyes were red. Clearly not an ordinary bird...

As he returned with something for the bird to eat,  he noticed the scratches on his hands still hadn’t healed properly.

Also, the cage was thrown to the side and the bird was gone.

 

Alucard didn’t panic  - he had no reason to. At first, he thought the bird may have found a way to open the cage but then unable to fly fell behind the table. It wasn’t there though. Then he hears it,  soft steps tip-toeing around. Small and fast. A child? Wild animal?  Or something else? He frowned. After looking around the castle,  he found the place where his father’s soldiers had been created. It wasn’t a pretty sigh. Still,  what he found was already dead and gone? Perhaps a small spur of magic remained in a creature he hadn’t noticed?  _There was a corpse he had overlooked and hadn’t burnt?_

He turned around and went off following the sounds.

The sound stopped for a moment when he reached the staircase of the tower, but then it started again. In a moment new sounds joined in. Steps,  laughter, yelling. He counted around five-six different voices. Human voices. _What were they doing here?_

The voices led him into the main hall at this late hour pained red with the light of the setting sun. There were a few kids -  six-seven or so -  grouped in the middle of the hall whispering to each other enthusiastically. He could hear silent sobs coming from the group too.

Alucard stopped in his tracks. He wasn’t sure what to do. He was he had experience with dealing with monsters and humans - adult humans to say at least - but children...  He should stay in the shadows for now. 

Hidden underneath the staircase, he examined the group.  There were of various ages. The youngest - a red-haired boy - seemed to be around five or six years old,  the oldest one -  a Gypsy girl with long hair -  about fourteen. She was kneeling in front of the small girl in the middle of the circle a blonde child in an attempt to calm her down. Alucard could hear sobs and fast mumbling coming for the child,  but he couldn’t figure out the words. He frowned. Were they alone here?  Maybe, they were a part of a larger travelling group, but he didn’t notice any adults around. Or…

After the raids of Dracula’s army, there must have been many orphans. It was only natural,  they would group together to ensure their survival.

Alucard cursed under his breath.

_“Oh, father, how many families you destroyed in an attempt to avenge yours?”_

His darkest thoughts were however quickly blown away as two new figures appeared in the hall - a man, tall and scrawny with a pale, long but handsome face darkened with worry, and a Gypsy woman about twice his age but with none of his worries dressed in an eye-catching costume of a fortune teller.The children's talk swiftly came to an abrupt end as they looked at the newcomers.

“Tasha? What happened to you?” the man ran straight to the weeping child. Alucard could now see,  the child’s hand was wrapped in scraps of bloodied cloth. He could also see her eyes were red and not just from crying.  In the back of his head, something clicked.  
The man gasped in surprise.

"Where were you all day?"

Before the child could answer the rest of the kids started speaking one over the other, spitting out excuses. The woman glanced around the room with faint interest. Her eyes met with Alucard's for a moment. The vampire held his breath. He was about to step out of the shadow. she saw him, right? But the woman's glance slipped from him as she turned to the group. She raised her had and all the talk ceased. All the children and the man looked at her. she motioned something, a series of fast and complicated gestures. At first,  Alucard though it was some sort of magic spell, nothing changed,  only the man looked around a bit startled.

“Alright,” he said at last, “We should go. You can explain everything after we treat your arm.”

 

He lifted the weeping child off the ground and, carefully as if carrying a wounded bird,  he carried her out, followed by the rest of the children.  The woman stood still for a moment,  she looked around and Alucard could swear their eyes met again. Then she looked away as if he wasn’t even there and following the others, she left the room.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so goes the thid chapter of this fanfiction.  
> As always, thank you for reading till the end, dear readers, and feel free to love it, hate it, having neutral feelings about it, staying quiet or commenting.  
> With best regards  
> the writer of this thing


	4. the last bit

The next morning caught Alucard in the library, where he was studying works of Arabic scholars. Or rather, struggling to do so. His Arabic was in all honesty rather rusty now. He hadn’t read in it for years. Plus there were other things on his mind. First and foremost, there was that odd group the other day… Well,  especially the blonde girl with the bleeding arm. He was now fairly sure,  she had been the bird he’d found before. So she was a vampire,  he concluded. Or at least a half vampire. Were there any besides him? But that wasn't the only question.  Why were humans taking care of her? Or even better one - why had they come here in the first place?

 _Why would a butterfly willing fly into a spider web?_

No,  he shook his head. The question was why hadn't _he_ done anything? He could have stepped out and spoken to them, to scare them off or to find out what they were doing here. It wasn’t like he could pretend the castle was empty,  not since the girl had seen him.   
And honestly,  he had almost done that. But something stopped him. He wasn’t sure what it was,  but something just made him want to stay unseen. _Alone._ Did he want to stay alone? He didn’t mind it, though to desire to be completely alone? He wondered. If he stayed alone for too long,  would he become like his father before he had met his mother?

He stood up and put the scroll he had been reading back at its place. 

It didn’t matter now. They had most probably moved on already. Still,  he should scout the castle and Belmont library a bit.

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. Belmont might have left the library to him to guard, but Alucard rarely visited the place. He had good reasons though. He didn’t like it much. Something moved in the corner of his vision. An intruder. Alucard was up and after the sound in an instance, summoning his sword almost on instinct. The weapon flew through the air and stopped just an inch before the intruder’s troubled face,  in which Alucard recognized the young man from the other day. 

The man stepped back hitting the bookshelf behind him. He winced in surprise and looked up at Alucard slowly lifting his hands to his head. Then he noticed someone next to him and froze. 

“What are you doing here?” he hissed at the Gypsy woman standing a bit to the side from them. 

“You were supposed to watch over the kids.”

He seemed extremely surprised to see her there. And so was Alucard. Her attire was glimmering with metal jewellery,  yet she didn’t make a sound. 

The woman gestured something to the man with an expression that can be described only as conversational. 

“What do you mean _this makes for a better show?_ " the man argued with her. "You know this is why they don’t let you watch over the kids alone.”

Alucard relaxed a bit. The man didn’t look dangerous. Though he still gave no explanation as to why he was there. 

“Who are you and what are you doing here?” he asked. 

The man cleared his throat and smiled nervously. 

“ Sir Tepes… “ the man started slowly. 

Alucard raised a brow at him. Lord Tepes. Well, that was rich. 

“ _Sir Tepes_ or Lord Dracula was my father,” he stated coldly, “ My name is Alucard. I’m the guardian of this castle.”

“And you,” he added, “are an intruder.”

The man took a sharp breath, looking at his companion for help. The woman only tilted her head. She seemed amused by the situation.

“My apologies.. ugh... Sir Alucard.” 

The man was trying hard to keep his calm.

“My name is… sorry, could you move that sword please?... thank you so much... My name is Jessie.  I came here to apologize for the intrusion. I mean me intruding right now and also yesterday. You see, we needed shelter for a while and I thought-”

“You decided a rundown castle in the middle of a dark forest is a safe shelter?” Alucard wasn’t even trying to hide the sarcasm in his voice. 

“And I should believe that.”

The man nodded somehow baffled. 

“Yes and I apologize again. I was told it was abandoned.”

“So you planned this. How did you know it was abandoned?”

The man threw a guilty glance at the woman. 

“Let's just say that here Nanya has a nose for these kinds of things. Though it seems she was wrong this time…”

The woman gestured all over the room as if to say: _“I saw a vision of an abandoned empty building, which this is. He does not count.”_

The man rolled his eyes. 

“Yeah,  sure. But besides that,” he looked back at Alucard. 

“I wanted to thank you for taking care of Tasha yesterday.”

_“The vampire girl?”_

 “A vampire?” only as Jessie asked that and only then Alucard realized he said that out loud.

“No,  Sir Te- Alucard. She’s simply a shapeshifter. Just like her father,” he added after a while. 

“He’s the leader of our group. Well,  was but we - Nanya,  kids and I - got separated from them, and we don’t know where they are right now. Tasha’s a bit of a trouble maker, always running off and never listens. you must have noticed. Again, I’m very sorry for the trouble she’d caused you and thank you for taking care of her.”

“It was nothing,” Alucard replied and finally hid away his sword.

 _“_ _Is she alright?”_

Another thing he didn’t mean to say out loud.

Jessie nodded eagerly as he put his hands down.

“Yes, my lord, very much. Shapeshifters like her heal fast. And I myself am a passable medic, though you were the one who did the most. We are indebted to you.”

He paused. 

“I know it is a bit too much to ask of you,  Sir Alucard,  but we would be very obliged if you let us stay here for a while. We’ll stay in that library you have down in the basement,  you won't even know about us.”

Alucard grimaced. 

“If that was true, I wouldn’t know about you already.”

Nanya giggled mutely. Alucard never realized how terrifying was laughter with no sound.

“Besides that, this place has already caused harm to one of your charges.”

Nanya rolled her eyes and gestured to Jessie something in her sign language. Alucard couldn’t understand her hands,  but her face was radiating sarcasm. 

“She says there are worse places for kids to be raised,”  Jessie translated. 

“Please,  let us stay. Just for a few nights. Of course, if you wanted something in exchange…” he left the rest hanging in the air, but Alucard understood. 

“No need. I don’t drink toddlers,” he replied dryly. 

A dark shadow crossed Jessie's face. 

“I didn’t mean the kids. Never the kids. And not blood necessarily either,  although if you want some I’m at your disposal.”

Alucard gave him a long look. Jessie was young - definitely not much older than himself. He was also scrawny and appeared as if he had never wielded a sword in his life. Alucard could rip his throat open in a split of a second. The woman didn’t appear much more skilled either. He would tear her apart before she could reach the stairs. It was honestly a miracle they had made it into the castle alive even if he put aside the fact they had seven children to take care of. They must have been extremely lucky. An old memory from ages ago crossed his mind.

_“She knew I could snap her neck right there and no one would even find her corpse. And yet,  she looked at me as if she was in a position to bargain,” his father had said to him. when he asked how he met his mother, "only fools and heroes from fairy tales do that."_

The vampire sighed. 

“Alright. But you should move from the Belmont library. There is some stuff that’s not appropriate for kids.”

Nanya rolled her eyes and gestured something to Jessie. Alucard wondered how the language she was using worked.

“She says, that kids are more inappropriate for the place than vice versa,” Jessie faithfully translated.

Alucard smirked.

“There are several rooms on the first two floors you can use. But, you must over those brats. This might not be the worst for children to be, but it’s hardly the best.”

Jessie’s eyes brightened and bowed down to Alucard.

“Thank you, Sir. We’ll do our best.”

Alucard threw a sidelong glance at Nanya. The woman raised an eyebrow at him as if to say: _“You expect me to make such a silly promise too?”_. 

Jessie sighed.

“Anyways, thank you again. Bye for now,” and he started to move towards the exit followed by Nanya. When he stood in the doorway he whirled around as if just remembering something.

“Mister and one more thing! When we were in the Belmont library,  kids found a large collection of vampire skulls.”

Alucard tensed. 

“Those are not toys.”

“Oh, we know!” Jessie agreed hastily and Nanya said to him something in a rapid sequence of gestures.

“They want to know if they can make them a funeral.”

For once,  Alucard didn’t know what to say. 

“A funeral?”

For a vampire? 

The woman nodded as if it was the most natural thing to do.

“It’s no good for their spirits when their skulls hang around like that,” Jessie explained.

“Or so I was told. I’m not psychic myself. Although,  if you really need them for something,  then we won’t bother-”

“Why would you do that?” Alucard interrupted him. Jessie looked up at him with confusion.

“I just told you. It’s no good for the spirits. Nor for the living I think,” he said solemnly. 

“Plus Nikolas - he’s the second oldest - made this sort of a hobby of making funerals.”

Alucard didn’t reply.

“Can I take that as a yes?” Jessie inquired.

“You can,” Alucard said at last.

“Maybe I can attend to. I’ve been planning to destroy that gallery of mass murder for a while now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear reader  
> here's the last chapter of this fanfiction. I hope it is to your liking and if so but even if not, don't hesitate to voice your opinion.  
> I wish you a good day(/night/any part of the 24 hours long cycle you're currently headed to) and more pleasant or not so pleasant (hey, I don't know your preferences) fanfictions from all around the world.


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